


Heathen Clung to the Homily

by ak1h1k0s



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Gay Richie Tozier, Internalized Homophobia, Jewish Character, Jewish Richie Tozier, M/M, Rosh hashanah time, bi Stanley Uris, stozier if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 13:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20908685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ak1h1k0s/pseuds/ak1h1k0s
Summary: Tashlih -a Jewish rite, performed on the afternoon usually of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, in which the participants symbolically cast off their sins by gathering along the banks of a river, stream, or the like and reciting prayers of repentance.Two Rosh ceremonies, two decades apart.





	1. September 24th, 1987 (Rosh Hashanah)

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is only really implied Reddie, go to the second chapter if you'd like the real Richie and Eddie interacting stuff.
> 
> fic title is taken from Moment's Silence (common tongue) - Hozier

_Derry, Maine_  
_September 24th, 1987 (Rosh Hashanah)_

The bank of the river is quiet, aside from the gurgling the rapids produce. It’s ironic, how fast life and celebration can leave the very thing that spawns it. Richie thinks so, at least, when he hurls large chunks of water into the river.  
A hand finds his to stop him. He turns, the warmth of human-to-human contact jolting him out of his impulsive-trance. His eyes meet Stan’s, which has an odd mixture of concern and annoyance. It’s a look only he can do, and a look Richie knows all too well. 

“Richie,” His voice is a double-edged sword, coaxing, and stern. It’s like when you bite into one of those weird apples that are green and red; bitter and sweet. “You’re supposed to be gentle. This is a ceremony.”

“We missed the ceremony, like, 5 minutes ago, Staniel.” Richie fires back, though there’s no malice in it. He smiles. 

Rolling his eyes, Stan releases Richie’s hand from his own to continue ripping pieces of bread gently with his nibble fingers. He stares ahead for a few moments, his eyes glossing over which only happens when he’s weighing words carefully in his head.  
“It’s easier to do this - “ He begins, tossing another piece of bread into the river. The two watch the rapids carry it away, “In smaller groups. I mean, the temple _is_ small but, just - I don’t know. It’s hard to confess to a lot of people.” 

Stan’s hands are shaking, throwing another piece in haphazardly. They watch the bread sink to the bottom of the riverbed. Richie wonders what sin that was if it’s the one making Stan’s hands shake so badly. Is it the same as his? The kind of sin that leaves you gutted like the trout in the river on a rock, a hook still in its lip that he found when he was 10.  
His own piece of bread sinks and Richie pictures lingering touches, wanting, brown hair and freckles and dimples - hands rough when they need to be but soft enough to wash away tears. 

_DON’T TOUCH THE OTHER BOYS RICHIE._

He wonders if he’s hearing God or Pennywise.

“Yeah,” Richie says after a while, throwing his last piece of bread into the water. “Yeah. It is.”

\----

The Uris household has the odd ability to coax Richie out of his defenses, which is something he won’t _(can’t)_ do around even Eddie._ (YOUR DIRTY LITTLE SECRET.) _ He theorizes that it’s because Stan’s dad is a Rabbi, so the house is _extra_ protected from ghosts and ghouls and dancing clowns. He admires the _Mezuzah_ before he walks in, picturing the tiny scroll with Hebrew words he’d most definitely butcher should he be told to read it.  
He wants one for his own room. 

Andrea Uris is a plump woman with curly hair who always smells like cinnamon and honey and always gives Richie the best hugs. Stan looks a lot like her - but their seemingly omnipotent knowledge of anything and everything relating to human emotion is really what ties them together. She sits across from Richie and smiles at him, putting more apples on his plate for him to dip in his honey. 

“_Shanah tovah umetukah_ A good and sweet year,” Andrea explains as Richie hums his content with the sweet treat. His mind wanders to Eddie, wanders to if he’d like the apples and honey as much as he does, to if he thinks Yiddish sounds beautiful too, to how his lips would taste after the savory desert (which it shouldn’t, this is a holy holiday at a holy house _don’t touch the other boys, don’t touch the other boys d-)_

Stan lightly kicks his shin, not looking up from his own apples. Andrea is looking at him crossly - a way mothers should, probably, he wouldn’t know anyway.  
Richie gulps down some more apples and honey and hopes his sins don’t burn through.

\--  
Donald Uris is hard to pick apart, Richie decides as the man begins to take the round challah out of the oven which would be the second sweet treat of the night. The looks he gives Stan are loving - but in such a way that’s almost hesitant. He couldn’t deny he doesn’t know the feeling, but it doesn’t make him any less uncomfortable to bear witness to it.  
Stan had said something about _‘intergenerational trauma,’_ but never elaborated and Richie put it on his of _Things Not To Bring Up Around Stand To Not Upset Him_ list, which is growing by the day. It’s a separate list from his _Things That Piss Stan off to Get A Reaction Out of Him_ and _Things To Make Stan Roll His Eyes and Scold Me_ lists. This one he abides by like its kosher.

“The bread is good this year, mommy.” Stan praises after swallowing his food, sending Richie a warning look to_ swallow_ before he agrees. Richie grins with his teeth, crumbs falling onto his plate. 

“Yuh-huh, Mrs. U,” Richie tacts on after finishing his bite. “Best fucking thing I’ve ever tasted! Like, for real, I’d buy a shitload of it and-” 

_“Beep beep, Richie.”_ Stan breathes out, words slipping through his gritted teeth as he rams his elbow into the other boy’s side. Right. High holiday. 

But he’s had sugar coursing throughout his body and unmedicated, unchecked ADHD on top of it. So he slithers his arm around Stan’s neck to bring him down and connect his knuckles to his scalp, ruining his curls and his _yarmulke_ in the process. Stan shrieks with a mix of surprise and laughter, his hands finding Richie’s sides before jabbing his fingers just underneath the last bone of his ribs. Richie too, shrieks with laughter, crumbs from the round challah flying from his mouth. 

_“Boys.”_ The tone sounds like it wants to be stern, but it's ruined by the stifled laughter that peeks through the syllable. It could only belong to Mr. U  
With a hurried shove that nearly sends Richie onto the floor, Stan jackknifes up and fixes his hair. A smile plastered on his face and sending a playful glare to the other, who fixes his own curls in tandem. 

And there’s the look again, the _hesitant loving_ one that Mr. U gives his son. Richie finds himself falling silent, feeling pity for Stan and shame for himself well up in his throat. _Don’t touch the other boys! And what do you do? Touch them. This is a holy house, of course they know - they probably knew the second you walked in. It’s surprising that your feet don’t burn. they know, know, know. Your dirty little secret, your dirty little secret, they know, know, know._

There’s a hand on his, the one that’s brought him from his thoughts as many times as another boy plagued them. Stan offers a smile, one that’s lopsided and small and gives him the same look Eddie gives him when he’s scraped his knee; or a joke didn’t quite land right. But it’s also more knowing because Stan has this weird psychic ability to know everything about everything involving the losers and the universe. To Richie, the two are synonyms. Which unnerves Richie slightly, as a secret isn’t a secret when someone else knows. But part of him also doesn’t mind that it’s _Stan_ that figured it out.  
Richie turns his head back to the two adults, who busied chattering together about whatever adults talk about. Taxes probably.  
“Another round of challah, _mishpokhe.”_ He beams, putting on his Rich-Californian-Politician Voice. Richie’s grin only widens when Mrs. U happily agrees and Mr. U applauds his Yiddish (though Stan insists it’s still rather awful). 

They party the rest of the night, swapping stories and laughter like its currency. Richie forgets about clowns and boys. He thanks the _mezuzah_.


	2. October 3rd, 2016 (Rosh Hashanah, the first New Year of the rest of their lives.)

_Derry, Maine_  
_October 3rd, 2016 (Rosh Hashanah, the first New Year of the rest of their lives.)_

He’s standing by the spot of the carving, though this time instead of a shitty 3 dollar switchblade he got at an L.A gas station, it’s a hamburger bun he stole from the townhouse kitchen. But the markings are still there, still carved out with shaky and roughened hands and they burn his flesh like the sun when he runs his fingers against it. 

Richie doesn’t remember the formalities all that well, because while he forgot because of a demon clown there’s still a fuckton he forgot because of childhood trauma in general. There are vague hints of celebration and laughter, of candlelights and words pronounced incorrectly and honey-cinnamon-scented hugs. He remembers the river and the sinking of bread and he suspects that even then they never did this whole thing incredibly formally. And he’s never been a very good Jew in practice - he forgets the holidays and only remembers when his parents call _sometimes._ Because, well, they’re no Donald or Andrea Uris. 

Gingerly he rips off a piece of the hamburger bun. He can practically hear Stan’s scorns to not shove the piece in his mouth. Despite being a 40-year-old man, and Stan being a year younger than him (which makes him a baby in Richie’s eyes), he finds himself listening to the words of his friends anyway. Throwing the first piece in, he wonders if Stan will stop by or if he went all the way to the synagogue in Bangor with Patty and Mike to celebrate.  
The bread carries itself down the stream, which Richie finds himself easing a bit at of. He calls that one _guilt_ because he’s had enough of that as a closeted gay man. The next one he names _shame_ which sinks all the way to the bottom. He feels like God creating the seven days - which reminds him that he should probably invite himself over to Stan’s sabbath dinner someday. 

_(“On the eighth day, God wept.” Stan said one night after sabbath dinner, holed up in his room. They’re 10. “They don’t tell us that.”_  
“How do you know?” Richie asked, hanging onto every word uttered from the other boy. He’s the founder of the Stan Uris Fanclub.  
Shrugging, Stan says, “because I would, too, I think.”  
Richie thinks he sees his eyes age ten years.) 

As he throws another rather large piece in (which he named _It)_ there’s the sound of tires against gravel. Richie’s head perks up much like a dog’s would. He throws another piece into the gurgling river before turning around. 

“Ah, Stan the Man! Coming to throw b- _Eddie?”_ Richie sputters over his words, his mouth hanging agape a bit at the surprise visitor. 

Eddie pulls himself out of his car with some trouble, his cane struggling to get a grip upon the loose Earth. Out of instinct, Richie finds himself quickly by Eddie’s side to help him out of the car and offering support to wherever the smaller one wishes to walk.

When Richie touches him, it burns but it doesn’t - there’s truly no word he can attempt to remember to describe it. It hurts but doesn’t and it’s everything but nothing all at once. The only word to describe it is _Eddie_ \- Eddie who’s loud and quiet and loves with white-hot intensity and hates the same way. He gulps when they reach the bridge, hoping Eddie is as oblivious as he remembers him being. Richie remembers shame when he touches Eddie - remembers its at the bottom of the river now.

“How did you…” Richie’s voice trails off, his words carried off by the gargles of the river and the secrets it keeps. His own sins, especially. 

“Rosh Hashanah,” Eddie finishes. He outstretches his palm in a silent order. Richie, never able to say no to the other man in his life, gives Eddie his hamburger bun willingly. 

Eddie looks confused about what exactly to do. Richie snorts a bit, earning a hip-check from the other. This must be what Stan had felt like when they were 10 and he had to teach Richie everything he wished he knew - things his parents never taught him. But Richie doesn’t know everything like Stan does, in fact, most of the time he feels like he knows nothing.

“Aren’t you goy? I don’t remember you ever saying Myra was Jewish.” He questions, ripping another piece of the bread off and this time plopping it in his mouth. “And the crosses above every fucking doorframe in your house told me Mrs. K wasn’t either. Poor ol’ Jeezy boy.” He sticks out his lower lip to feign grief. It’s funny because as much as Richie wasn’t taught about Judaism, Eddie was most certainly an awful Protestant. 

“I _know_ what Rosh Hashanah is, dipshit-” 

“Why did you come here, Eds?” 

Eddie seemed slightly taken aback by the seriousness in the taller one’s voice - looking to him with wide eyes as if he’s been caught before ripping his gaze to the river which fills the silence that falls over them.  
Silence with Eddie is always uncomfortable because there’s such an intense _something_ between them. Something they don’t know - but maybe they do, just never want to burn their tongues by saying it. 

Bouncing from his toes to the soles of his feet, Richie takes another piece of bread. “You’re supposed to throw bread in, it represents your sins being carried away to start clean on the New Year. Something with Abraham, too, you’d have to ask Stan the Man-” Pause. “God, I’m so fucking awful at this.” 

“And I’m an awful Protestant,” Eddie shrugs, taking his own piece off the rapidly shrinking bun. He throws it in so lightly that Richie would have made fun of him if this were any other time. “We can’t all be what they want us to be.”

The words have so much weight that Richie nearly crumples under them when they leave Eddie’s mouth. They’re staring at each other now - for seconds and also eons. The words are what he wants them to be, what he’s hoped they’d mean and what he would pray to a God that looks so much like Donald Uris it's crazy. He’s burning and freezing cold and it's just another way _Eddie_ makes him feel. _Eddie_, an adjective and a noun all at once. He feels selfish for never being able to pick. But he remembers Shame is cast away, probably sitting in the stomach of a lucky fish. And fish are immune to sin, so he considers it a win. 

“Do you- do you want apples and honey?” Richie blurts out, words flying and fumbling over themselves in haste. “A sweet start to the New Year, and all that.”

Eddie blinks, so awfully slow and owlish. He throws a piece of bread in the river (he will call it Shame too, he will also call it Myra and Mommy - which are all synonyms like losers and the universe.) 

“Yeah. Yeah that sounds nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for reading! Here's my carrd for other places to find me! https://sapphoites.carrd.co/


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